PAPERS UN AGRICULTURE 101 



While more or less germination takes place in most of the 

 various concentrations tried, it appears that after a certain 

 concentration of sucrose with agar is reached, (20 per cent;, 

 germination ceases altogether. The optimum conditions for 

 germination were furnished by a solution of 10 per cent su- 

 crose with 0.7 per cent agar. 



INCOMES OF DAIRY FARMS 

 F. A. Pearson, University of Illinois 



Farmers are a conservative class of people and are engaged 

 in a conservative business. The average operator's labor in- 

 come secured from 765 farms in 1912, was $636, or about $2 

 per day. The incomes varied from $1,797 to $b,602. These 

 extremes although quite divergent are relatively trivial when 

 compared with the immense fortunes and great financial fail- 

 ures in our industrial centers. Agriculture is characterized by 

 individualism, and has not shown any great inclination toward 

 concentration of production. In this respect it differs from 

 many urban industries. The fact that agriculture is a highly 

 decentralized and individualistic industry, forces it to be a 

 conservative business and as such it affords no chance for ac- 

 cumulation of great fortunes or suffering from great losses. 



As previously stated, agriculture pays to the operator in this 

 region an average labor income of $636. This income, altho 

 not large, is considerably above the average wage paid to farm 

 labor, and is a stimulus to keep good men in agriculture. 

 These incomes, however, are not large enough to attract to 

 the farms any considerable part of our urban population nor 

 any great amount of the capital concentrated in our large 

 cities. 



The discussion must not be misconstrued to mean that ag- 

 riculture has paid in the past or will in the future pay 

 as good returns as it does today. Agriculture has had 

 its "good times" and its "hard times," which may or 

 may not coincide with the same periods in the industrial world. 

 There is a continual race between agricultural production and 

 demand for agricultural produce. It is only natural that each 



